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Rail Engineers to strike over Easter bank holiday

17 March 2016

Rail maintenance and safety engineers will take all-out strike action over the Easter bank holiday in a dispute with Network Rail over back payments owed to them.

The strike will begin at one minute past midnight on the morning of Maundy Thursday and will run until almost midnight on Easter Monday, and is likely to disrupt services to both Virgin East Coast and West Coast mainline traffic and all Northern, Transpennine and Cross Country services.

It will hit Network Rail's programme of essential engineering work scheduled to take place across the holiday period, with some having to be rescheduled for busier and less convenient times.

Network Rail have refused to negotiate with the union to resolve a long-running dispute over the company's refusal to implement agreed pay rises to around 90 staff.

Says TSSA leader, Manuel Cortes: "TSSA has been trying for literally years to persuade Network Rail to honour agreements relating to annual pay increases which are linked the knowledge and skills of these professional staff, many of whom are graduates. However, in last-ditch negotiations yesterday, Network Rail has refused to budge, and the considerable patience of our members has finally been exhausted.

"They don't want to walk off the job - they just want to be paid what they are contractually entitled to! Bizarrely, Network Rail has already paid some of these staff what they were owed, with payments in some cases being in excess of £10,000. And then they suddenly put the shutters up!

"TSSA remains available for further talks, but Network Rail should be clear that our members are determined to win what is rightfully theirs - the strength of feeling on this issues was demonstrated by the fact that 80% voted in favour of this strike.

"Our members don't want to see the disruption of Easter rail services. But Network Rail must accept responsibility for the dispute, do the right thing, agree to settle our members rightful claims, and allow us to call off the strike."